Remember when we were growing up and we’d fall down or even fail at something, and our parents would tell us to brush it off, “rub some dirt on it”, pick up and keep going? I still hear that voice pop up all the time with every challenge. What’s tough is when you try to pick up and move on, but aren’t able to for whatever reasons. Right now, I’m speaking of my heart.

Last week, I finally went in to get a defibrillator placed in my heart, however, when they did the EP study (where they put your heart through a bunch of various stress tests to see if my heart would stop), my heart held up! They said my heart was a lot stronger than they had expected, so they didn’t end up putting in the defibrillator! While on one hand, I’m excited that my heart is still ticking like a badass, I’m a bit annoyed that they didn’t go through with it. My family has a long history of widow-making heart attacks, and my cardiologist has said that my biggest risk right now is sudden failure. I was hoping this would provide me with a safety blanket to save me from the fate my family members have all died from! I was also counting on this to be a strong supporting argument to get my kidney. However, now that I don’t have it, I’m not sure what my standing is for the transplant. I don’t meet with my Cardiologist and Echo-physiologist for a couple of weeks, so I’m in limbo right now just waiting (I’ve been doing a LOT of that lately!). I am feeling positive that my cardiologist will still back me up for the transplant as he’s always been a strong supporter for me, but I have no idea what the Echo-physiologist will say. Crossing my fingers that I’m still a viable candidate!

In the meantime, the obstacles. What sucks and makes it very hard to “move forward” is that I’m not allowed to work out, lift anything heavy, do any cardio, and have been strongly advised against working stressful or physical jobs, Not sure about you, but this does not sit well or easy with me. I feel as if I’m not able to help my body (and mind) stay healthy and strong as I did last time. I’m anxiously awaiting their approval to be able to kick it in gear again! I’m not a weakling and I don’t want to feel like one, so let me pump some iron! LOL!

In the meantime, in true “hurry up and wait” fashion, I’ll continue to focus on staying healthy, staying social, staying somewhat active (as much as I can be!) until I get the much-anticipated “go ahead!” (I should have named this blog with “Patience” by G ‘n R, however I might have already used that one several times. hahaha)

Link to donate – http://www.LivingDonorFortWorth.org

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Things I’m thankful for today:

1.  My friends. Thank you for keeping me social! I’ve been a bit of a hermit lately, so it’s nice to be pulled out into society every now and then. 😀

2. My kitties. We had a scary emergency with my little babies last weekend and so far they are doing perfectly fine. Whew!

3. Aside from the confusion regarding next steps, my heart procedure last week went very smoothly with no complications. VERY thankful for that!

4. Juicy grapes and apples. Since I’m very restricted to the amount of fluid I can drink, I’ve resorted to eating some of nature’s candy to relieve my thirst. So yummy… however, I’m now having to relearn how many carbs are in the fruit I eat b/c it’s made a small impact on my sugars! Ooops…

4. The world’s first kidney transplant using a pig’s kidney was conducted last month and has so far been successful! The patient (a true hero for volunteering to do this) has been at home for about a week and is so far doing well. I’m praying that he continues his success as this could possibly mean the end of the years-long wait for transplant patients all over! For more…https://hms.harvard.edu/news/first-genetically-edited-pig-kidney-transplanted-human